Here’s goofyhead’s latest photo. He loves to play fetch, but seems to forget that he’s supposed to give me the ball back.
Took him to the vet a few days ago and learned that he weighs 61-flippin’ pounds now. 61! Sure enough, I almost threw my back out on Saturday when I tried to lift him into the tub.
BTW, Tara doesn’t even weigh 61 pounds.
I’ve never seen him as tired as he is tonight. He was out in the yard all day, playing in the great weather, and I don’t think he slept at all while he was out there. I uploaded another pic to Flickr, too.
I’ve just finished a month-long project: cutting way down on the number of groups I’m in on Flickr. Back in the day, I’d join groups willy-nilly and spread my photos far and wide trying to build up stats.
That, of course, was more work than it was ever worth. And when this project started, I was subscribed to more than 300 groups. Ack!
So, clearly it was time to cut that down to a more manageable number. I’m done:
I left groups that are dead, i.e. – groups that haven’t had any active discussions in 3+ months. And I left groups that I’d probably never upload new photos to — like a Wicklow, Ireland, group. Much as I’d love it, we have no plans to go back to Ireland anytime soon.
I think 97 is a more manageable number, and now when I go to post photos to groups, I don’t have to wait 30 seconds for my full group list to load. Nice.
How many Flickr groups are you in? Too many?
It’s been a while since I’ve found anyone using my photos in blog posts and elsewhere, but this more than makes up for it. I just sold usage of this photo:
This one has been licensed (for a small sum of money) to a web development company in Canada who wants it for web-use only. By no means am I getting rich off these photo license agreements, but it’s essentially free money for photos that I took and uploaded ages ago. Can’t beat that.
One of the great things about Web 2.0 is that it’s now kinda cool to sit down and share vacation photos with friends — not like back in the old days when you’d sit in the living room and go through slide-by-slide while Grandma or somebody tries to explain every little detail in the photo. Save me from that torture!
Now, you can cruise through pix and see what you want, leave comments on the photos you want to, mark some as favorites, etc. Or you could ignore them altogether and make me sad. 
I think this might be my favorite shot from the Philly/NYC trip earlier this month:
That’s a somewhat artsy-fartsy shot of Independence Hall. Turned out well, and a little messing with the exposure makes it more interesting (to me). If you’re curious to see more, the full set of 39 photos is on Flickr now.
You can see my son at Yankee Stadium, and some good action shots from the game we saw. Or maybe the room where the Declaration of Independence was debated in Philly, plus the very moving Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier with its eternal flame. We also took the kids to see my grade school and the all-boys high school I attended — kinda like the school in Dead Poet’s Society, but ours wasn’t a boarding school.
This squirrel pretty much begged for my attention while I was walking around the Northwest Forest Conference Center near Houston last week. I ended up taking maybe 15 different pics of him (her?), and this one might be the best.
He just sat on the branch posing for me as I took shot after shot….what a character!
There are so many reasonz to love the Internetz, and here’s one of mine: I, a complete hack photographer, can occasionally make a little bit of coin by selling photos for commercial publication. How cool is that?
This photo, of a lighthouse called “Terrible Tilly” off the Oregon coast (as seen from Ecola State Park), will apparently be used in the May issue of Seattle Magazine. (They’re doing a coastal feature from what I understand.)
I’ve previously sold photos to the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau for their 2008 Visitors’ Guide, and to a company based in western Washington for their 2008 company calendar.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not going to retire on any of this; it’s just a little extra spending money. But I’m going to be out taking photos everywhere I go regardless, so if I can get a little scratch back for my efforts, fantastic.
Thank you, Flickr. And thank you, Seattle Magazine.
A couple weeks ago, I was invited to speak at SearchFest 2008, which took place at the Portland Zoo. In the offices/conference area, not in the monkey habitat. 
As the event was winding up, the zoo gates closed and since we were already inside the grounds, I basically had the run of the place. As a zoo lover, I couldn’t resist. I’ll get around to posting more photos to Flickr down the road, but this polar bear shot is one of my faves so it gets uploaded first.
Magnificent animal, isn’t it?
We’re having a summer sneak preview these days: Temperatures are in the 50s and low 60s, and the warm weather had me looking through some pix I took last summer around the Tri-Cities. This one is from the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington.
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